Robbie's Wife (7 page)

I got out my wallet, found my passport and he examined it carefully.

“Well, Mr. Stone, you think you’re all right to drive now?” He shone the flashlight on my face. “Here,” he said, holding out his index finger. “Follow me if you will, please.” The finger moved from side to side, up and down. Then the light dropped.

“You have a place to stay, Mr. Stone?”

No, I thought, and then, because I didn’t want to explain my aimlessness, I said, “Yes, a place called Sheepheaven Farm in Mappowder in Dorset.”

“You’re a long way from there, sir.”

“I came up to see the Tor. It was only going to be a day trip.”

“And you have people there waiting for you?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like us to contact them, let them know that you’re all right?”

“No, not at this hour.”

“Would you like us to file a report on your window?”

“No. It’s a rental car and it’s insured.”

“Well, in any case, there will be a report on file, Mr. Stone. We’ll take your license number and if you could show us the rental receipt and the registration we’ll let you get on your way.” He spent a few minutes writing down the information, gave me back my passport and my California driver’s license. “You’re a long way from California, Mr. Stone. I hope this doesn’t spoil your stay here in the UK.”

“No,” I said. “I suppose there are people like that everywhere these days.”

“You’re all right, then?”

“Yes,” I said. “And thank you.” He stood, watching me get into the car. I started the engine and he did not move, waiting for me to drive out of the car park.

Once on the road I wondered where I would go. I had no place to sleep and I was in no condition to drive all night. It would be another four hours before it was light and I thought of going back to London, finding my cheap hotel, turning the car in, but I was exhausted and the road was wet and bleary. The only place I could think of was to go back to Sheepheaven Farm. I could park in the farmyard and when daylight came I could explain things to Maggie and Robbie and they would let me sleep and tomorrow I would get a fresh start, go back to London, end my odyssey, run back to Los Angeles with my tail between my legs. I drove the two hours south, came into the farmyard with the headlights off, turned off the ignition and fell asleep again. I awoke to the barking of Jack the dog, and Robbie’s face peering through the window at me.

“Fucking cretins,” Robbie said. “They’re everywhere. There’s no longer any shame to being an arsehole. I used to go see Bournemouth play football but they were everywhere, picking fights, shouting obscenities, getting pissed and vomiting all over the place. Fucking pigsty it was, so I stopped going. You got away with a smashed window, Jack. Better that than a smashed head.”

“Can I get the room back for tonight? Clean up a bit? Maybe have a cup of tea?”

“Good Christ, Jack, you sound like a proper Englishman. Get your car nearly turned over, drive half the night, and what is it you want? A cuppa tea.” He laughed and said, “Of course you can have the room. And Maggie will fix you a cup of tea and you can take a bath and later we’ll go have a pint and you can tell your war stories to the Strykers. And they’ll be wanting to go up to Glastonbury and find those yabboes and do a bit of bashing themselves. Only for a good cause, mind you.”

I went into the kitchen with Robbie where Maggie, turning, said, “Jack Stone! What a surprise!”

“Jack here needs a cup of tea and a bit of care, Mags. He’s had a touch of bad luck. I’m off to Stur, Jack. Market day. I’m still looking for a calf. You’re in good hands with Maggie.”

I sat at the now familiar table and had a cup of hot tea and Maggie sat across from me and listened to my adventure and shook her head and said, “What you need is more than a cup of tea, Jack Stone.”

She went to the cupboard, brought down a bottle of scotch and took two glasses off the drain board. She poured a finger of scotch in each one, set them on the table and said, “I don’t do this often. I’m glad you’re back. And I’m glad you’re safe.”

“I don’t think I was in that much danger, Maggie. The policeman said they were doing it for the fun of it.”

“Not my idea of fun,” she said. “Still, I’m glad you’re all right.”

She sipped at the scotch, then reached out to touch my hand and said, “I watched you drive out of the farmyard and I thought how brilliant it would be to be able to drive off, make the first turn and go on without ever turning back.”

“It didn’t work out so well for me.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Just the idea that I could go off on my own, no compromise, nobody to ask or say, I’ll be back at five or I’m going shopping. Just to be able to go.”

“What about Terry? And Robbie?”

“I couldn’t leave Terry behind. I’d take him with me.”

“Terry’s your only child.”

“Yes,” she said. She looked toward the kitchen door, as if she expected him to suddenly appear.

“He would have had a brother.”

“You wanted another child?”

“No. I got pregnant. Terry was six. But I didn’t want another child. I love Terry, but somehow another child seemed more than I could bear.”

“What happened?”

“I had an abortion. I had it killed, Jack Stone. Sucked out of me and flushed away.” There was a stillness in the room so heavy that I could feel it pressing on us.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything.”

“Did Robbie want the child?”

“I never told him. No one else knows. I don’t know why I’ve told you. Now you know a terrible secret about me. Are you good at keeping secrets, Jack Stone?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. And you? Will you tell me a terrible secret?”

“I’m not sure I have any.”

“Rubbish. We’ve all got them. I could probably fill a dustbin with yours.” She touched my hand again, smiling. “I’m filled with them. I’m a cesspit of dark secrets.”

“That’s nonsense.”

She sipped at the glass, made a grimace as she swallowed. “Of course it is. It’s the scotch talking.” She poured another finger of scotch into her glass.

“You should slow down. I don’t want to be blamed for getting you soused before noon.”

“Not to worry. I’ll be the proper farm wife, have the supper on, do the washing up, trot off to bed like a good girl.”

“Somehow this doesn’t sound like you.”

“You don’t know what I sound like, Jack Stone.” Her voice had a hard edge to it, as if she were about to accuse me of something.

“No, I suppose I don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice softening. “That was uncalled for. It’s just that when you drove off, I suddenly wanted to be driving off with you.”

“You would have had an ugly experience.”

“Maybe we wouldn’t have gone to Glastonbury. If I had gone off with you, Jack Stone, where would you have taken me?”

“Majorca. Spain. Morocco. Some place where there’s lots of sun.”

“I’d like that,” she said. She sipped again at the scotch, set the glass on the table and rose. “Time for me to become the farm wife, Jack Stone. There’s things to be done. If you’re up to it, we’ll take a walk later. Go listen to the river. Go on up to the room, draw yourself a bath, take a nap. Come down when you feel like it.” She drank the rest of the scotch, squeezed my hand before releasing it. “I’m glad you came back,” she said.

I went upstairs and drew a bath and then fell asleep and woke in the failing light of late afternoon and came down to the kitchen to find Terry sitting at the table.

“Hello, Terry.”

“You’re back, sir.”

“Yes. Looks like you can’t get rid of me.”

“Mum says you nearly got turned over in your car by some bad men.”

“Let’s say I had a bit of an adventure, but nothing terrible happened to me.”

“Are you going to turn it into a movie?”

“Not a bad idea.”

“If you had your computer we could write it out,” he said.

“Should I go up and get it? You won’t get in trouble for neglecting your schoolwork, will you?”

“I’m almost done.”

So Terry and I sat at the table, writing dialog for a movie in which an American tourist gets attacked by English thugs and, according to Terry’s version, leaps out of the car and thrashes them thoroughly.

“You make me out to be a hero,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m a rather ordinary man who wouldn’t stand a chance in real life.”

“Mum said to Dad that you were a tough nut to crack.”

I wondered what the conversation had been about. How had I come up between Maggie and Robbie? I thought of asking Terry to tell me more about what he had heard but then thought no, not a good idea, Jack. Leave it alone.

“So, Terry, what do you think of our movie?” I asked. “Should we read it out at supper for your mum and dad, just like they do in Hollywood?”

“You mean make a real movie?”

“No, they get a couple of actors to read the script out loud, see how it sounds, pretend that it’s the movie before they decide to make it. What do you say? We’ll practice it, and surprise them?”

I spent the next hour with Terry, watching him stride about the kitchen, waving his arms, coming back to the laptop screen to read another line, speaking the words with obvious relish. He’s his father’s boy, I thought. He’s watched his father and he’s got his manner, even though he doesn’t know it. And for the first time in my life I wished that I, too, had a child who would have mimicked me.

Maggie came in soon after, carrying grocery bags, and shortly Robbie arrived.

“Did you find a calf?” Terry asked, and Robbie said no, they were a sorry lot, but he’d be off first thing in the morning to a farmer in Winterbourne who said he had some likely animals and how was I?

We had tea and afterward Terry and I read our script to the applause of Maggie and Robbie and after Robbie had gone upstairs to put the boy to bed Maggie said, “Not many men would do that with a ten-year-old, Jack Stone.”

“I enjoyed it. He’s a good boy.”

“He likes you.”

Jack the dog had curled up at my feet and I said, “Dogs and little boys seem to like me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Jack Stone. Robbie likes you, too.”

“And you?”

“And me. I get the feeling you’ve been burned enough times so that you’re afraid to reach out. You might be surprised.”

“And what happened to our walk this afternoon?”

“I looked in on you but you were sleeping like a baby and I didn’t have the heart to wake you. And I had shopping to do, so I left you alone. But tomorrow, first thing, after the boys are off, we’ll take that walk. I promise.”

As she said that, Robbie came back into the kitchen. “Promise what?” he asked.

“Promise that if he asks me to run away with him to Majorca next week, I’ll go, but you’ll have to find someone to cook and do the washing and get Terry off to school on time.”

“Not easy,” Robbie said with a grin. “But there’s that bird who lives in the council house just down from the store. I’m not sure what kind of a cook she is.” He paused and Maggie said, “You’ll have to get in the queue behind the Strykers, Robbie. I think she’s booked for next week!”

“I’m not promising anything,” I said.

“A likely story,” Robbie said.

Robbie asked if I wanted to go down to the pub for a pint, but I begged off. I was suddenly very tired. Upstairs in the room I lay on the bed for a while, listening to the rise and fall of their voices in the kitchen, wondering if I were a part of whatever it was they were talking about. Don’t flatter yourself, Jack, I thought. I turned on my laptop and tried to write for a while and I wrote out the scene where Maggie and I had stood at the weir. I invented a long dialog between us in which I told her how beautiful she was and then I wrote a scene in which the two of us stepped onto a white beach and Maggie stepped out of her old skirt and stripped off her blue sweater and plunged naked into the sea. I could see her swim out to the breaker line and then watched her head just above the water as she swam parallel to the shore, occasionally raising her arm to wave to me. When I read over what I had written, I knew it was good, but I also knew it was a fantasy that had no ending, only dream-like scenes that floated, disembodied, linked by nothing except my longing.

Maggie and Robbie’s voices grew louder as they came up the stairs and then I heard Maggie say, “Quiet. We’ve got someone in the guest room,” and Robbie saying, “Fuck him. You’re not paying attention to what I’m saying at all,” and Maggie’s voice, insistent, sharp, “I hear you Robbie Barlow, but you don’t hear me anymore. You talk but you don’t listen,” and then they were behind their door and the voices were muffled and I went back to bed and shut out their voices and willed myself to sleep.

The next morning I slept in so that once again Robbie and Terry were gone when I finally came down.

“Do you fancy that walk?” Maggie said, pouring me a cup of tea. Behind her the curtain was lit by sunlight.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“Then finish your tea, and I’ll be ready.”

A few minutes later she came back into the kitchen wearing her yellow pants and red sweater again, this time with a huge black scarf wrapped around her neck.

“Quite dramatic,” I said.

She twirled the end of the scarf and said, “My life is full of drama. When I’m dead and gone someone will write it out and it will be called The Sheepheaven Chronicles and every village wife will read it and weep.”

“I’m afraid I heard you and Robbie last night as you came up the stairs.”

“Not to worry, Jack Stone. We argue all the time. It’s called married life. You should be familiar with that.”

“I’m sorry I said anything. It’s none of my business.”

“Don’t be sorry. Let’s take our walk,” and she reached out and took my hand, pulling me through the door into the farmyard.

“Sun!” she called out, raising her face to the weak sunlight. And she released my hand and began to run across the farmyard toward the stone wall, pausing to look back, calling out, “Come on, Jack Stone! Stir yourself!”

I caught up with her and we climbed the field but this time we turned the opposite direction at the top, headed for a distant copse of trees. We stopped once to look back down at the farm and she pointed out the spire of the church in the next village, and further on the rise of Bulbarrow Hill. As we stood there she leaned back against me and it seemed natural to put my arms around her, and she remained, reaching up to pull my arms tighter around her body, her hair a tangle just below my face and she said, “I can feel your heart racing, Jack Stone.”